Larger (insert funny name here)

After much time debating and finally coming to a decision I ended up deleting my loremaster, Abellio, in order to create my newest character, Larger, he is a dwarf guardian with a long black beard and no hair on top of his head, after all, he always wears a helm, so who cares…plus I think it adds to the badass harley riding look I was going for…heh

The only thing Abellio still had that made me really think twice was his artisan level of jewelcrafting, but that really isn’t a big thing, after-all I have noticed that most of the jewellery I wear comes from completing quests after all, also, there are plenty of tinkerers in the kinship if I ever wanted to get items.

I know some of you are probably thinking why make a new character?  Well, to be honest, it is just my play style, there isn’t anything I can do to change it, so I accept it and enjoy the leveling process.  I decided to make him a metalsmith, since I don’t have one and always seem to be throwing away those recipes.  How is starting over from level 1 for the 6th time?  I have to say it really isn’t as bad as I remember, I did skip the introduction scene for the dwarves, where you go into the cave and end up meeting Gandalf who turns the troll into stone, it isn’t necessary and only gives you experience, not a big deal.

Also, once I hit level 11 I made my way to Bree to pickup the quests in Staddle and Bree-land, mainly because finding a group there is much easier and I know those quests by heart now.  I found a group of players to start Book 1 Chapter 1 and we ended up sticking together until finish Chapter 11 in the Barrow Downs, I was only level 13 and hadn’t died once so I was pretty excited about reaching level 14.  But, somehow upon stepping down the stairs inside the instance I was killed in one hit by one of the elite wights.  It was pretty crazy and I was stunned for a second trying to see how I died so fast, I guess I drew too much aggro, go figure, the tank getting the aggro, and our minstrel and captain couldn’t heal me fast enough to compensate.  Oh well, no big deal, I will always be the undefeated.

I am so glad I have a tailor and woodworker already created, I didn’t know you needed materials from those crafts to create the heavy armor and crafting tools.  I have found myself buying ore off the auction house to get my crafting up quickly, copper isn’t that expensive, not compared to buying ancient iron ore at least.

I reached level 18 the other day with Larger and upgraded my armor, I got the heavy shield from completing the Lallia escort quest, my total armor rating is over 500 now, which is pretty good for a level 18 character.  I think my level 42 burglar only has around 700 ac, but then again he can evade a lot of attacks.

I still have to yet to decide on a surname, some people in the kin suggested Member, and that is pretty funny, but I don’t know, I am thinking of something a bit more dangerous, like think of something a biker would be called, I don’t know, how about Steel, or Magnus or something…

Beryl Shards

I know there are a lot of people out there roaming around in Middle Earth searching for the mobs that drop beryl shards.  So, I thought I would do a little searching and share some information here.

First of all, beryl shards are a required item for a lot of single use recipes at the Master level.  There is an excellent source with locations of the rare spawn mobs scattered throughout the game at lotrolife.com, link is HERE.

As far as respawn rates for these rare monsters, I really have no idea.  It varies supposedly from anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, and sometimes the rare spawn point is occupied by a normal monster, so you should know the exact location of the spawn point and keep it cleared.

I really had no idea there were so many rare spawns who actually dropped beryl shards before checking out the site.  It helps make it somewhat easier knowing ;loc also, maybe one of these days I will put together a path of travel for areas that can take me to the exact spawn points for each one with hopes of at least finding one of them and getting a shard out of it.

As far as finding the single use recipes, that is another endeavor altogether.  It can be assumed that since most of the humanoid type mobs drop recipes, you should go farm on level 47 plus mobs for the recipes.  But, once again this doesn’t guarantee you will get a single use recipe, they are random and meant to be rare, so time and luck once again will play major factors here.

As I said in my post about grand master crafting, it is almost easier to go buy the shards you need, of course if you have the gold to do it of course, if not, I hope this site will be of some help to you.

Happy hunting out there!

LotRO Events

It has been a while since I posted about general questing in the game.  Basically, ever since I reached level 50 with my captain, I have only logged on to play him to do the occasional dungeon and to help farm beryl shards.  The rest of the time I have been busy leveling my burglar, who is now level 42.  Once I hit 42 I made sure to upgrade all of my gear, it helps, but one thing to consider, in Tal Bruinen there are quests which will give you a set of gear, either light, medium or heavy armor set, a chest piece, shoulders, and an arm band, so make sure you do those quests and don’t waste your money like I did…heh

I finally got to see Gollum, the quest itself was pretty neat, better than the walk with Frodo quest in Rivendell…I have found that playing a burglar is really a lot of fun, and if you know what you are doing you can avoid death in almost every situation.  With the help of Anglos, my kin leader and a good pick up group, we completed book 4 chapter 8, escorting Legolas, that quest can be pretty hard at the end if you don’t know what you are doing.  Right now I am setting my sights on finishing up the Misty Mountains quests and plan on heading out to Angmar after that.

Also, I reached Grand Master Cook with Sean, my burglar and it is sort of hit and miss as far as selling a stack of 15 lembas goes, sometimes they sell like hotcakes and other times they just sit there.  I noticed the weekends are usually better for selling, so I might just stick to that.  But, also, there are other cooks out there trying to sell their stuff as well, and so the battle for the lowest priced stack starts, I do not go below 215 buyout, so I don’t always sell my stuff, but when I do it is worth it.

As most of you have already stated and I know full well to reach a grand master level in a craft, you must devote almost all of you extra time and money into that, which right now I just don’t see the point.  I am happy making a few hundred silver a week off of lembas and the rest I make just doing quests and playing the game.  In order to keep the game fun, I have to draw the line somewhere, and becoming a money hungry crafting freak just doesn’t fit into the equation for me.

What’s next?

I feel I have neglected the posting and should remedy that now.  Gaming has been either all or nothing, still grinding away in Lord of the Rings Online and I really don’t see myself quitting anytime soon.  The game still has quite a bit of fun left for me, also I have made some good friends in Middle Earth so that makes the time that much better.  My long lost original burglar from open beta, Sean McLovin, is now level 40.  I was kind of disappointed when I visited the trainer at level 40 and there was no special skill waiting for me to train, but then again I know in the future, book 13 from the rumors, they plan on releasing all the cool new skills and stuff, so until then I will save my coin and keep on keeping on. 

With so many other fellow bloggers moving onto new and exciting gaming frontiers I have to admit I am compelled to dabble a bit.  But, with the lack of spare time I just don’t have enough motivation to decide which game to try out.  Tobold has gone back to good old reliable WoW, DM Osbon is playing Tabula Rasa, there are many others out there, too many to mention really, but I have said before the Wrath of the Lich King does hold some interest for me, so I don’t want to rule out anything at this point in time.  Maybe I should set some type of goals to reach, but then again, gaming to me isn’t about achievements, well, to a degree that is true, but games are all about having fun, as long as the fun factor is there I suppose I will go where the current takes me along my journeys.

I do see myself taking more breaks from LotRO, the burnout factor between playing my captain to level 50 and now my second character to reach level 40 has taken a toll on my fascination with Middle Earth.  I mean, they keep adding the grind, such as reputation, raids, etc…but I am not really nor have I been that excited about all that stuff.

The decision is mine to make, but I do like to share here with you all, perhaps to gain some insight into others thoughts or likes and dislikes.  Maybe I am growing tired of being lost in the grind.  I know that might sound strange to some of you, but really, being lost isn’t all it is cracked up to be, although it really is just a phrase I made up when I created this blog, but really the grind does bring with it so much more than just gaining experience and levels.  It gives me some kind of release from the real world, an avenue for escape into a digital world where I am in control and I do what I feel like, without pressure from anyone or anything.  The grand illusion of something better, in search of power and glory?  Perhaps, but that search takes me down paths I would never see in this world, comparing  time spent over in Iraq to time spent battling the worst enemies in Middle Earth really is ridiculous, but in a way they are similar.  You set aside your fears, worries and trust in the fellows standing next to you and move forward without any regrets, in the end the payoff is always worth it one way or another.

So, what is next?  I don’t know, I find myself in a similar place as DM Osbon a few months back when he decided to go back and start from scratch with World of Warcraft.  Maybe I should go buy an XBox 360, that probably is blasphemy to some of you hardcore PC gamers, myself included, but then again I could keep in touch with my son, who has been happily playing Halo 3, from what I have seen that looks like a pretty awesome game.  I know the hype has been all around.  But, then I come back to my senses and remember I am saving up for my next PC purchase, which right now I estimate to run me around $1500 if I leave out a few accessories.  By the time I get to actually spending the money the next big technology will be out and what I have put together today will be obsolete, always seems to be the case.  I don’t know what is next, but I will let you know when I find out.

Life after Death

You could say I have been so lost in the grind I couldn’t find my way out of it to get on here and write a little bit for you today…but than again you could just say things have been busy…and you could be right.  In any case there’s no need to fear, well you know the rest.

Where to begin, last time I left off shortly after the Book 11 patch in LotRO.  I have been a busy little bee ever since the patch, originally I bought a quaint little dwarven abode deep in the Thorin’s Hall homesteads, but that turned out to be even too dark for my tastes…hard to believe really.  So, I managed to accumulate the required 7 gold to purchase a large house in the bree-land homesteads and with enough luck a new neighborhood opened up with the perfect little cottage by a lake, so now I reside at 4 Garden St. Morglan, Breeland.  I have it open for anyone who wants to take a peek inside, just please leave the toilet seat up and take all empty beer bottles with you…someone decided to have a party while I was out grinding on reputation and made a mess of the place…I think I need to get a pet warg to keep the riff-raff out.

Of course you know my captain has been level 50 for a little while now, so what do I do since there is no point in doing quests?  Luckily Turbine doesn’t leave me bored, there is plenty to keep me occupied, the last patch was HUGE, I mean I still haven’t seen all there is to be seen since Book 11…I am still on Book 9, that is a long and winding trek to get these books done it seems.  I am not in a huge rush to complete them or anything.  Our kinship decided to try our luck at the 12 man raid in the riff…that turned out to be more than we had anticipated, multiple deaths and much crying and a little bit of frustration, after about 3 hours we decided we had been tortured enough and called it quits.  I have to say this dungeon was at about the same difficulty level of say AQ 20 man, reminded me of that sort of strategically planned attack style…but in other news, I have been milking the new decorations for all I can in the AH.  I am not going to go into details, it might be bad for business, but let me say I am not hurting for gold these days.

I have been playing my original character, Sean, burglar, he is now almost level 33 and I really enjoy playing him, and although he can’t heal very well, if at all, I still like the stealth and crit attacks he so wonderfully executes.

I promise screenshots of my home in the next post, I didn’t get any good shots before the server went down today, until next time friends, happy hunting.